Huntsville Hospital employee tests positive for coronavirus

15 other staff members were quarantined after coming in contact with the person.

Posted: Mar 30, 2020 4:46 PM

Updated: Mar 31, 2020 9:00 AM

Posted By: Sydney Martin

Huntsville Hospital said one of it's staff members has tested positive for coronavirus.

David Spillers, Huntsville Hospital CEO, confirmed the case but said because of privacy laws he couldn’t say anything else about it.

Huntsville Hospital

Spillers said about 15 staff members were quarantined because they came in contact with the person who has the virus. He said everyone who was quarantined was tested. WAAY 31 has asked if anyone is still in quarantine or if they are back at work.

Spillers said the amount of patients the hospital is seeing is down right now, and explained the hospital has a staffing pool and people are looking for hours to work. Spillers said the sickness hasn't impacted patient care.

He explained they have a process to contacting staff members and patients who have come in contact with someone who might have had the virus.

"Any time a staff member tests positive or even is quarantined to potentially be positive, we track back everybody that the employee has come in contact with and make sure they get monitored as well," he said.

On a typical day, Huntsville Hospital Main has about 700 patients, Spillers said. He explained right now there are closer to 500 patients.

Spillers said Madison County only has seven patients hospitalized and confirmed to have Coronavirus. There are 56 patients in the hospital system awaiting coronavirus test results, he said. Only two of the Madison county patients who have coronavirus are on ventilators.

Spillers said right now they have enough staff and haven’t had to pull any employees who don’t work directly with patients to other areas. However, he said that could change in the future if the number of hospitalized patients with coronavirus goes up.